Sales Funnel – What are they and why it matters to you?

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Reading Time: 6minutes

There is a lot of hype about the Sales Funnel lately, and it demands an explanation. In fact, some people need to know what a sales funnel is, the benefits and why it effects their business? Sales funnels have been around for years. Although many buyers never knew exactly what a sales funnel is, or the fact they were in one. Most were just happy with the free gift or upgrade. However, when they opted in to the list for the free gift or the coupon they were starting a huge opportunity for business that customer became a businesses bread and butter.

Businesses need a sales funnel to open the window of opportunity. Most businesses, in fact a lot of businesses do not have a large budget to advertise. Implementing a sales funnel reduces the need for a huge ad spend, and if built properly, yields results. I will discuss the kind of results a sales funnel should bring in a moment, but first, let me explain exactly, why your business needs a sales funnel, and the benefits of starting today.

If you sell a product or service your goal is to sell products or your service. You may have a website or you may use Facebook or other social media as a sales channel. Maybe your website is getting lots of traffic and maybe it is not, maybe you are converting, but at a much less desired rate. The solution comes from having a sales funnel. I will explain right now.

Say you have 100 visits per week to your website. That is free traffic that you are allowing to visit your website, your store, or your Facebook page for free. You are building your brand online for customers and are allowing them to visit without gathering their information, opening the window of opportunity with a sales funnel. Having a lead capture to grab your readers attention, will help you to market your product or service. Simply put, you are now exchanging value with your reader.

You have probably seen many of times a pop up that comes up while you are reading a blog, or a website. A few examples are major retailers. These retailers offer a coupon in exchange for your contact information. This is a win win for the store and the customer and most times a customer will enter their email address, to save money since there is considerable value in saving money.

The value for the business is the door of opportunity in a sales funnel. Say perhaps, as most retailers do – you are visiting Best Buy, and they have the new drone in the store. You are browsing online to see it is there and you see a pop up that says you may register for a drawing for a discount. So you enter your details and click submit. Once you click submit you are taken to another page automatically that says, Congratulations, you won, enter your credit card to claim your discount. Would you? Lets assume of course you are a drone pilot or fan. Would you enter your credit card to claim the discount on your product right away?

OK, lets assume you enter the credit card for this example. Now after you do that, you are again redirected to another page. On that page, you see a option to upgrade your purchase. In this upgrade you are getting more tools, and a warranty, and they will deliver it directly. The upgrade for this is $300 marked down to $129. What do you do?

How about this? Lets say you do not fall for the sales funnel. Lets say you enter your email, and decide to wait to see if you win a discount. Just ten minutes later you get another email and this one has more information than the last. This email tells you of the tools you were not aware and offers the same discount. By now you are getting pretty concerned that you better take this deal right? This is your LAST CHANCE as the email says? This time even though you really want this drone you decide it is not the right time and close the email.

Two days later you get another email from Best Buy, now this deal is even better than before. It’s $29 more but comes with another year warranty which usually runs $89 a year. You can’t do it anymore can you? This time you decide, you have to have the whole package in this sales funnel, and now, you are paying for 2 upgrades, when you started out looking for a discount on a drone…at Best Buy.

Don’t worry, you are no sucker. In fact, millions of people are just like you. Some would have bought at the 1st email and some at the 2nd, and the others would have waited until the 3rd, and sometimes, even the 7th email before the customer buys. That is a sales funnel, and I define it as Black Friday for a business. A Sales funnel drives hungry buyers to your product or service. Just to be clear, your business needs a sales funnel.

Imagine being Best Buy in the sales funnel situation. You are a business that is simply offering a chance to win a discount, and you just sold a product, over $500 because you have a sales funnel. Some people think a sales funnel is trickery. This comes from the days of old and squeeze pages that over promised their product or service and failed at delivery. From a Funeral Home to a Dentist, to a Doctor, to a Lawn Care Company, to a Lawyer, to a Construction Company, to a Blogger, to a Car Sales Company, to a Online Store….EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS A FUNNEL….

Now let me explain in detail the benefits of a sales funnel.

Your business is hungry for customers, every business needs customers. There is no exception to the rule. If you are in business your #1 GOAL is to get customers business. You do this through a sales funnel, and here are 7 benefits to a sales funnel:

#1. Increased Customer Base through Lead Captures

#2. Ability to market products (Once a customer leaves your website it is over, when you make a lead capture, you retain that customer, and the opportunity to sell products).

#3. Instant ability to up sell a product or even sell a product or service. 100% of xopt into value, These are examples of value in a sales funnel “Schedule now and save” “Book Now and Save” “Free Shipping” “Free Shipping over $100” “Sale ends at Midnight.” The #1 value for a sales funnel is a Free Giveaway such as a coupon or eBook.

#4. Product Sales

#5. New Customers

# 6. Learning – Sales Funnels will help you learn what is working and not working. If you try to give away $100 to every visitor and no one is biting, something is wrong right? Just having your website is not going to give you the data you need that a sales funnel will. Clickfunnels has an A/B test option and it is very convenient and easy to set up a split test on landing and sales pages.

#7 Gaining a customer you may have lost, if you did not have a sales funnel.

I think it is clearly established that your business, in fact, every business needs a sales funnel to get customers. It is easy to see that a sales funnel helps you achieve the most basic goals in your business. Getting Customers. If you continue without a sales funnel in your business you are leaving money “on the table” and letting a customer slip away.

The Results of a Sales Funnel

To properly gauge the metrics on this we need to evaluate the type of sales funnels and what the goal of the business is. Historically, pre-launch products and businesses have used a coming soon lead capture landing page. In fact, some even offer an immediate value in a discount for a pre-launch opt in. If your goal is customers than starting with a lead capture and offering value such as a coupon, or a lead magnet giveaway such as a Free Consultation, Free eBook, or a Free Download of some sort.

Assuming you have done a good job on your SEO or ad strategy you should definitely yield good results in your sales funnel with a lead capture only funnel.

Once you have that lead, the possibilities are endless. To achieve the best results in a sales funnel you should be sure to target the right audience. Making sales with a sales funnel is a breeze with a properly built sales funnel. In fact, there are evenfree sales funnels giveaways like this one here that you can have that are already built for your business.